OUR
PROJECTS
In order to carry on Leah's legacy of compassion, leadership, academic excellence, and a spirit of giving, the Leah K. Horowitz Afafanto Scholarship, our main project, sponsor promising young women from Northern Ghana so that they can continue their education through secondary school. It is hoped that these special young women will gain the knowledge and skills that they need to empower and improve the lives of women and children in their communities.
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$1000 provides everything one girl needs to complete a year at senior high school.
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Our other projects help women of two target communities; Larabanga and the Sagnarigu Shea Butter Cooperative.
AFAFANTO SCHOLARSHIP
Donate to support girls in need. Give the gift of an education for a chance at a more successful future .
Alumna Program
Leah's Dream is working to establish a variety of programs to enable alumna of the program to network with other professionals, establish mentor relationships, and give back to the program so that current scholarship recipients have extensive peer support.
SHEA BUTTER COOPERATIVE
Purchase Shea butter for your skin, hair and nails. It's not only good for you but profits on each jar sold go back to the women's cooperative that produces the wonderful stuff. Want to know more? Watch a movie or Click the title for more information!
BRIDGE TRAINING
There are 3 training programs to support our Afafanto students and graduates! We help adolescent girls to gain skills and confidence. Our HS students have free computer training in our new computer lab in Tamale and soon to be open lab in Larabanga. Our third year students and alumni are offered a summer skills training program that may lead to a fully paid apprenticeship program with a local business.
Afafanto Girls’ Clubs
Leah's Dream is starting the Afafanto Girls' Clubs to work with Junior High School girls, after school, on preparing for their B.E.C.E. exams. Help us give these girls the confidence they need to move on with their education.
ABOUT LEAH
Leah died at the age of 29 on the Cape Coast road of Ghana, West Africa. Leah was a meteor, speeding too quickly across the sky. Through this scholarship, may her luminescence remain a long time. Giving another girl just on the precipice of womanhood the opportunity and financial wherewithal to find her own identity would be just what Leah would have wanted.
The Afafanto Scholarship Fund is a tribute to Leah's work and heartfelt belief that women in Ghana deserve more and that education at the grassroots level is the best way to impact the lives of women for generations.
At the young age of 11 years old, Leah Horowitz was drawn to adventure and fascinated with the wider world. By the time she arrived at Dartmouth College as an undergraduate, she was motivated by the words of Dartmouth President Dickey’s charge: "The world’s problems are your problems."
Leah inspired everyone she met to do better. Although she was a brilliant academic, she always had one foot outside of the classroom. She knew she needed to not only make an impact domestically but internationally as well. A trip to Zimbabwe had made a lasting impression on her. She found herself returning to Africa again and again. In 2005, she began working for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Not content to sit in a cubicle all day long, Leah requested a permanent transfer to the field office in Accra, Ghana. She became Program Coordinator and Research Analyst for that country.
Leah was just on the precipice of womanhood. Afafanto means butterfly in the native Ghana language of Twi. Leah was similar to that butterfly emerging from her cocoon. She struggled mightily to find her identity and place in the world, in an effort to come to terms with not being able to do it all. She once said that dying did not scare her, but only the sadness of not doing all she intended to do.
835 Morris St.
Philadelphia, PA
PA 19148
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Sandee Mandel,
Executive Director US 501c3
Email: afafanto@gmail.com
Phone: 610-331-3825
OUR ADDRESS IN THE US
OUR OFFICE IN GHANA
Box Office 1139 Tamale
LOCATED Gblo-kpalsi plot no. 409 two blocks away from Northern Television Station.